US renewable boom passes key milestone in April
When last we looked at the state of the US grid, the ongoing explosion in solar energy had turned it into a major contributor, but one that still lagged well behind fossil-fuel-powered generation. So it was a bit of a surprise when preliminary data suggested that May 2026 saw solar power pass coal-fired generation for the first time in the US. Now, with the official release of April grid data by the Energy Information Administration, we can see that production of solar electricity had passed coal a month earlier—with a bit of a caveat.
The caveat being that a substantial chunk of that solar production never reached the grid, since it’s produced by rooftop installations and used in the building they sit atop.
The situation heading into April/May was pretty simple. After a brief resurgence last year, coal use resumed its decline, despite repeated government attempts to prop it...
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